Suzie loves inventing things – unfortunately they don’t always work according to plan, and when she makes exploding dumplings she is banned from testing things out. Watching her favourite programme Space Blasters, she is inspired to modify the remote control to give her a 3D experience but the result is not what she expected. She suddenly finds herself part of the crew, resented by regular character Five Eyed Frank and suspected as a spy! Funny, fast paced and with clear text, well-interspersed with appealing illustrations, this is an ideal novel for newly confident readers, especially the younger end of KS2 who can be tricky to recommend good books for. I really enjoyed this and I am sure it will appeal to lots of the readers in our school library.

What a joyous space adventure! I love to dip into kids’ books from time to time and knew I was guaranteed a good time with Katie and Kevin’s writing. Suzie is a wonderful protagonist with a heart of gold and a head full of science. Managing to transport herself into her favourite television programme, she soon finds herself stepping foot onto multiple planets with her new space companions in an effort to solve a space mystery! Plenty of moments to make you smile and chuckle and a good sprinkling of science facts along the way! Space-tastic!

A lovely sci-fi adventure that is ultimately about loneliness and escapism (but with a bunch of disfunctional gadgets and eerie aliens!). I can see many young readers enjoying this

SUZIE SAVES THE UNIVERSE is a blast of a book (pun fully intended), following Suzie Wen as she finds herself aboard a spaceship in pursuit of missing moons. Along the way, she meets all sorts of aliens and finds a way to fit in with a crew who aren't all pleased to see her.

This book is full of weird, wacky, and wonderful planets - there's one made of cheese! I won't spoil the others, but they were so inventive and so much fun to encounter. It meant this book has a mix of "anything-goes" sci-fi alongside the very accurate facts, all with a focus on invention, imagination, and helping others.

I did not expect this book to have as many illustrations as it did! That might be one of the differences in presentation between upper and lower MG - just how visual the book is. There are large spreads or smaller images on almost every page, with the text bending and wiggling around them.

Not only do the illustrations help bring the scenes to life, but there are extracts from Suzie's notebook and little science factoids in hexagons scattered about the book. It really makes for a feast for the eyes while you read.